Bending radio: getting silent output safely

[jorgen]

Hello!

I've just gotten started with circuitbending and I'm having fun with some radios. I use a telephone mic on the speakers to record sound without fear of dying from electroshock.

However I'd like to route the sound through some software effects, without getting the pure sound from the radio itself (which is superloud, that's cool but a bit unpractical). On a workshop I was told I should never ever connect the output of the radio to a soundcard etc; no direct connections between my fingers on the circuitboard and something plugged in the wall..

Is there any way to do this?

[Circuitbenders]

What kind of radio are we talking about here? In what sense is it plugged into the wall, is it mains powered?

What do you by 'the output of the radio' that you shouldn't connect to a socuincard? The line out, the speaker out, something else entirely?

We're going to need some more details here...............

[jorgen]

What kind of radio are we talking about here? In what sense is it plugged into the wall, is it mains powered?

What do you by 'the output of the radio' that you shouldn't connect to a socuincard? The line out, the speaker out, something else entirely?

We're going to need some more details here...............

Thanks for the reply! And sorry for the lack of information..

The radio itself is battery powered. By output I mean a line out / headphone jack, which I'd like to connect to a soundcard, the latter of which has the ominous wall connection. The reason I'm hesitant to use the heaphone out is that I went to a circuitbending workshop where we were warned never ever to connect anything in this way for risk of DEATH.

At another forum I've been told two different things:

I) I can connect through the heaphone out safely using an audio transformer with low impedance at the primary and high impedance at the secondary

II) I shouldn't worry; the radio (which is a fairly new standard one with a cd player and thus should be solid state) will have a power transformer and is therefore completely safe.

What do you think?

[Circuitbenders]

I don't know what people are talking about in terms of any risk, but its complete rubbish. Theres no risk whatsoever of connecting the line out of a radio to the line in of a soundcard.
Think about it.  If there was any risk then nobody could possibly make any music, as plugging the output of a synth into your soundcard might kill you. 

If there was any possible danger to you in touching something thats connected to a mains powered soundcard, mixer  or amp, then nobody could play the electric guitar!

The only time there could possibly be any danger would be if something had gone so catastrophically wrong with your soundcard that it would either have blown its fuse, or just blown up.

You don't need any kind of transformer. Just plug the radio output into the soundcard and adjust the input level to suit, or turn down the radio if the level is too high.

[jorgen]

Ok thanks for that, sounds good!

The reason I saw it as plausible that it could be dangerous was that after all we're creating new strange random connections around on the circuit (at least random for me), and somehow that could lead to danger. To a newcomer like me with little knowledge of circuits and so on that does sound a little bit different than an electric guitar etc.